Tempy's notes: You know a good book? Dancing in Red Shoes will Kill You by Dorian Cirrone. It's hilarious. The opening line is a hoot and then some. (Yes, iOc, I borrowed that from you. Don't sue.) You know another good book? The Heretic Queen by Michelle Moran. Absolutely beautifully written.

Anyway, second chapter! Whoop! Hope y'all enjoy! …Exclamation point! :facepalm:

Anyway, in response to Mr Blue22's review, I should make some things clear: There are Saiyans and Namekians. The Cell Game did happen, but Hercule didn't take the credit for it. A lot of this will be explained in upcoming chapters. This is an AU, so things will be different than the cannon. And the chapters will get longer, this I swear! (Thank you to iOc for helping me to understand fanfic slang. She does so much for me. XOXO)

Disclaimer: I do not own Dragon Ball Z. All characters rightfully belong to Akira Toriyama, my sensei and inspiration.

Summary: AU. After Videl accidentally steals a flower from the Ox King's garden, she finds herself in a rather peculiar predicament. She is engaged to his grandson— and she has no idea what he looks like! Would you go beyond the ends of the earth for the one you loved?

Red Roses

By The Temptress Rises

Chapitre II

Right as Rain

"The monsters came again last night."

"Hm?" my blonde friend hummed, her blue eyes glazed as she gazed out at the practice fields. I could see the morons known as male teens wrestling in a large pile, trying to take down the dumbest of them all. Sad to say, we were friends with that idiot.

"The monsters." I told her, popping a pomegranate seed into my mouth. It burst with a bitter, sweet juice. The pit crunched softly between my teeth. "They came back."

"You've been seeing them for years now, right?" she asked, tilting her head to the side.

"Yeah. Since mom…"

"I know."

We sat in silence for a few moments, swinging our legs. The fence surrounding the practice fields wasn't the most comfortable place to sit, but it was either there or the grass. There were two things that stopped me from sitting on the soft pasture, one was my friend, Erasa, and the other was my nursemaid Aplonia. Erasa would freak if she got grass stains on her clothes and Aplonia would skin me alive if I discolored mine.

Speaking of Aplonia…

"Lady Satan!" she shrieked out, seeing me on the fence.

I winced, but glad that none of the boys noticed, yet. Key word: Yet.

"Hullo, Aplonia." I murmured, brushing my hair behind my ear nervously.

"Look at you, sitting on a dirty fence! You're ruqun is soiled." she scolded, clucking her tongue.

A ruqun is simply a blouse, a skirt, and a waist skirt tied at the middle wish a sash. Typically, it's adorned with a jade ornament. While normal women of noble birth would wear shoes made of fine silk, I wore simple straw sandals. They could stand up to the abuse that I tended to dish out on a normal day. The little, flimsy silk things, not so much.

"It's not soiled." I turned around, praying that the silk of my skirt didn't tear as I did. I slid off and brushed out any wrinkles and dirt that may have clung to the fabric.

Aplonia jostled me so that she could see my behind. She eyed the skirt. After a few seconds, she nodded and let me go. There was no damage done.

"Your father paid a pretty pound for this particular fabric and he paid another pretty pound for the seamstress to make this ruqun." she told me.

"You came all of the way here to tell me that? I already knew all of that."

"You forgot your banbi." She held out the small jacket. I slipped it on, begrudgingly, and she tied the ribbons into a bow. "There, little dumpling, pretty as a doll."

I tried not to scowl at her comment, but she could read me easier than the fortune teller can read tea leaves.

My scowl had nothing to do with being called pretty, it had to do with the fact that the boys might overhear, suddenly realize I was a girl, and have a fear of breaking me if they so much as breathed in my direction. It would be the end of my life as I knew it, and I wasn't ready for it to end just yet. Or at all.

Luckily for me, the moronic group was too wrapped up in their wrestling to notice the disturbance. Really, it was a blessing, seeing as how loud Aplonia was being and all.

"Misses Erasa, I do believe that your mother needs you. Something about visiting relatives." Aplonia said rather slyly, even for her.

"Oh, thank you, Aplonia!" Erasa gasped. "I completely forgot. Vi, I'll call for you when my family leaves. I should only be a few days. You can tell me about your dream and any others you might have until then. Bye!"

She shuffled off, the skirt of her ruqun trailing just slightly on the ground, fluttering in the way I wished that mine would. I had a tendency to… trip over them. True, I was graceful but only to the point that any one else was.

"Oh, bah!" Aplonia grunted, she lifted up my sleeve. "You've gone and stained it!"

Oops.

"I'm not that dirty!" I protested, trying to stand up in the wooden tub only to be pushed back down by Aplonia. "The sleeve was dirty, not me!"

"Hush!" she scolded. "Now, Misses Erasa said something about dreams? Lady Satan, what, may I ask, are these dreams about?"

"Monsters."

"Monsters? What kind of monsters? Nightmarish?"

"Of course, only they're worse."

"How so?"

"They don't try to eat my flesh or gouge my eyes out and let me die peacefully in my dreams. Oh, they do something much worse." I paused to add dramatic effect. Aplonia's eyes glinted with mischief, she knew what I was going to say next but she wanted to humor me. "They make me wear the loveliest ruquns you've ever seen."

"Just ruquns?"

"Uh-huh."

"I'm sure." she chuckled. "Now, what do they really do?"

"Not much." I wrinkled my nose, out of habit, mostly, when I was thinking but also due to with the fact that the soap that was rather pungent. It was a combination of both this time. I was glad when it was washed out. I traced my fingers through the growing suds. "They destroy villages and towns, shoot these… ray-things out of their eyes and mouths, and howl at the sky and stuff like that. They seem… sad. At least, their howls do."

"They don't really sound like monsters."

I shrugged. "It's just what Erasa and I call them. Physically, they're only monsters but mentally, they're something more."

She hummed, taking a comb to my hair. She stopped and I heard bottles softly clanking together. I turned to see her looking through the scented oils. She chose one (was it tea rose or jasmine?) and started to comb it through my hair. (It was jasmine.)

"You have forgotten about the trip already, I see." she clucked.

"Trip?"

"Yes, you are going with your father, don't you remember?"

Oh, that trip.

I stood up, slapped a big goofy grin on my face and lied:

"I can't wait."

Tempy's endnotes: A ruqun and a banbi are Chinese clothes. It's really the best way to describe them. If you can't picture a ruqun, think of what Mulan was wearing in Mulan (the one with the green top and the pale yellow skirt). A banbi is a cropped jacket that ties in the front and it has short sleeves. It's not fun to wear a ruqun or a banbi (as I know this from personal experience), and I laughed at the idea of having Videl wear one. Ah, my trips to visit my family. Fun times.

Aplonia's name derives from the word "apple," by the way.

Like I said before, chapters will be longer in upcoming chapters. My intro. chapters for the two main leads were going to be short, no matter what I did. So… forgiveness? Maybe? Yes? Not no?

Thank you two my lovely reviewers, the wonderful people who added this to their favorites list and the two who added this to their alerts list. Muffins for you folks!